


Momentum

by LadyCersei



Category: The Handmaid's Tale (TV)
Genre: Dark, Daughter of Gilead, F/M, Flashbacks, Gilead - Freeform, Multi, Ofmathew, Rebellion, What-If
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-26
Updated: 2019-06-26
Packaged: 2020-05-20 04:18:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19369618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyCersei/pseuds/LadyCersei
Summary: A series of one shots of Holly's life in Gilead if she was returned by Canada. Switches between past and future.





	Momentum

Serena waited quietly. Dry eyed, red and puffy. The skin on her cheeks was chaffed raw from salt and friction. Still she waited with fearful anticipation. It was only by virtue of Fred’s position that she was granted access at all.

She could smell chlorine. There was no pool here of course, but she could smell it. Sixteen years had not changed that.

Her mouth was dry and she could feel bile threatening to burn the back of her throat.

She was a woman of many regrets, but this one had to be the worst.

“Come.”

The Eye quietly led her in to the cell room where they were holding Nicole. A brief sense of relief washed over her. She looked unharmed so far and she couldn’t see any signs of bruising or scratches on her, though her pink dress was dirty. Her daughter’s eyes met hers, but all Serena could see in them was hatred. In that moment her stomach felt like a bottomless pit. Still, she persevered.

“Nicole I am glad to see you are safe. Stay strong, your father and I will work something out. Olivia’s son, he might agree to marry you and…”

“Stop,” her daughter said disgusted.

Serena went quiet. “

Even now, you choose to be blind. Choose to defend the indefensible.”

“I do not know what-“

“You are not my mother. June is.”

Serena went cold all over.

That woman.

That damned handmaid.

She had thought the trade off with Canada for June and Hannah for her daughter had ended all those years ago, but still, that woman continued to be a blight in her life, even from a distance. Even sixteen years later. And now she had gotten Nicole mixed up in her schemes.

“How did you find out about her?”

Nicole turned away and faced the ground. It pained Serena more than she could ever know that her daughter refused to even let Serena embrace her.

“There is no point pretending you don’t know what I have been up to or who I have been involved with.”

Serena swallowed hard and hoped the Eyes hadn’t heard. She did know, deep down, but had never wanted to acknowledge it. She was good at that it seemed.

She could smell the chlorine again.

The very same choking smell Eden had drowned in all those years go.

_‘What are you going to do when they come for your daughter?’_

June’s words echoed in her head. Words she had said to Fred. Serena started to shake and she fell to her knees. Her hand covered her mouth as she started to cry and the salt of her tears burned her cheeks raw. Nicole didn’t say anything. Just watched her with her poker face and long silence.

Serena composed herself, sniffed and looked at _June’s_ daughter. The silences, the staring, saying so much with her eyes. More like her real mother than she knew.

“They are going to kill you , do you understand? Or send you to the Colonies. I can’t bear to…your father and I are trying to save you, b-but...”

Nicole looked away.

“You could have saved me by letting me stay in Canada as a baby.”

So much condemnation in one sentence.

Nicole continued. 

“It was Janine. She told me everything before she killed the Putnams in the explosion.”

Serena struggled to find the words for that revelation. What was there to say? Though she hadn’t known it was Janine who had caused the explosion. After all these years she thought the crazy handmaid had been moved to a different district, born more children and then joined the Red Centre as an Aunt. “

And Angela…” Serena began.

“Charlotte,” Nicole corrected.

“….”

The silence stretched. Nicole reached into her bra and pulled what appeared to be a photo . She handed it to Serena and watched as her adoptive mother contemplated the photo before turning it over.

_June & Hannah-Missing in Gilead is baby Holly. Named for her Grandmother Holly Osborn _

“I knew there was something wrong with me. Why I never fit in. Why I never felt at home. Why I always secretly loved to read and taught myself, despite the few times you caught me and had me caned. Why I always wanted to be more than what Gilead had to offer women.”

Serena resisted the urge to rip the photo in two.

“You’ve already met June haven’t you?”

Her daughter didn’t deny it.

“I didn’t know who she was at the time, but I connected the dots eventually after we returned from Canada.”

Serena could hear footsteps approaching. They were going to interrogate her daughter now. Even her and Fred may not be spared. “You couldn’t be a mother before, but at the very least when they finally take my dead body off the wall, the least you could do is bury me as Holly.”

The Eye’s returned and Serena started to cry as Nicole was dragged away and Serena was hit in the mouth with the butt of a rifle for screaming too loud. The photo fell on the ground as Serena sobbed, blood and spittle covering June’s face.

* * *

 

* * *

 

Nicole sat quietly as she was driven in the van. They had struck her a few times in the interrogation, but hadn’t done much as she had confessed to fornication and it served as a good cover for her treasonous activities and her involvement as a young spy for some Mexican delegates. A gruff looking Aunt had come in after a doctor had cleaned the split on her lip some hours later, with a new pink dress that maidens in Gilead wore before escorting her to a black van.

Dread and fear welled up in her, but she was determined to meet death bravely. She wondered if they were going to make a public example of her as a warning to other Daughters on how to behave or if they were going to hang her from a crane quietly and privately to uphold the official line that Daughters of Gilead are pure.

She had many regrets about not escaping with Charlotte and Seth after Janine’s sacrifice, but at least she would die knowing the truth about her parentage and how she came to being. The cassette her real mother had sent to her husband Luke in Canada while she was still a handmaid was tucked safely away under a floorboard in her room.

Nicole had listened to it every night just to hear June’s voice. A warm voice. Serena’s voice had always sounded so cold. Cold and empty. But not June. She imagined her mother was a warm and kind-hearted woman. A forgiving woman. Janine had always said so. There would be no soothing voice to listen to any more. Maybe when she died she would be soothed by the voice of her Lord.

The van stopped and Nicole tried not to shiver. The doors swung open and Nicole took her cue from the Eye to meet her fate. 

* * *

 

“You expect me to believe that,” the gruff Commander before her said.

Serena held her ground.

“Why not? I have defied before and it is why I am missing a finger. I used my daughter to cover up my own sin.”

The Commander raised a brow.

“Why sacrifice a daughter of Gilead who is fertile and is barely out of childhood. My husband will see to her punishment, but it was I who was in sin. I am an adulteress. I shamelessly used my own child to cover for the fact I am a traitor. Nicole was only being obedient as a daughter of Gilead must be."

Commander Reuben sat back, fingers laced together and contemplated. “Very well.”

* * *

 

 

Nicole sat at the table, shocked, relieved, annoyed. Perhaps her ‘father’ had pulled some strings after all. Now she wanted to know what it meant for the family dynamic. She was technically a treasonous rebel, but also knew who her real mother was and what she had sacrificed for her.

Her father, Commander Fred sat opposite of her. Summer rain patted gently on the roof tops. His eyes were watery.

“Your mother won’t be coming home.”

Nicole grit her teeth.

“She’s not my mother.”

Fred’s mouth twitched.

"Your mother confessed to treason and infidelity in your place. Told them you were lying to protect her. I couldn’t even ask for the clemency to send her to the colonies. She will die by fire tomorrow.”

 

Nicole leaned back in her chair. Stunned. Surprised.

 

Her eyes too began to water. The anger and hatred she had felt for her mother suddenly seemed insignificant.

 

“But,  why won’t they won’t send her to the colonies? She’s a wife!”

 

Her father looked at her with glassy eyes. Eyes as glassy as hers.

 

“They don’t send so many now. Not much toxic waste to dig up anymore. It use to be drownings for adulterers.”

 

His gaze turned hard.

 

“And the daughter of any priest, if she profane herself by playing the whore, she profaneth her father: she shall be burnt with fire.”

 

Nicole was left with a feeling of dread. Gilead, making their own rules and cherry picking what they liked from the Bible to suit their dystopian punishments.

 

“It was decided that Wives will be held to the standards of the daughters of Levite Priests.”

 

Nicole licked her lips. A myriad of emotions went through her.

 

“Why? Why would she do this?”

 

Fred laughed bitterly.

 

“Because she is your mother. A mother does anything for her child.”

 

A fresh wash of rage went over Nicole and she knocked her glass off the table.

 

It shattered into a several pieces and Rita came in to see what had happened until Fred gestured for her to leave.

 

“June once told her she was a mother for letting me go as an infant to live in Canada. My _mother_  betrayed that promise. I could have gone to school, learned to live a life, have a boyfriend, be preparing for college, have normal friends, go to movies, go to the beach. Normal things. Good things. And now what?”

 

She couldn’t help the tears rolling down her cheeks contemplating the life she could have lived. A life Serena had denied her.

 

And now the only mother she had ever known was going to be burned alive to pay for her mistakes.

 

“Taking you with us to Canada was a mistake,” Fred said quietly.

 

Nicole laughed. Demented and twisted,

 

“Was Gilead worth it? Your wife is going to be burned alive, your daughter is a traitor, you yourself have lost a foot, your past handmaid caused you a wealth of trouble…”

 

Fred took a drink of whiskey and then swirled it.

 

“She is going to die for you tomorrow. You can stay in your room and contemplate your sins, your mistakes and your eternal gratitude for the sacrifice your mother has made.”

 

Fred got up and turned to leave, but Nicole wasn’t finished.

 

“And what about June’s many sacrifices?”

 

Fred went still. Nicole briefly wondered if he was going to stomp all the way over to her and strike her face.

 

“Is June going to be burned alive?”

 

Nicole had no answer.

 

Fred left and Nicole buried her face in her hands and wept.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
